Dine My Way - new MedallionClass enhancement

[wowzz]

4 minutes ago, dides said:

I always used to tip in dollars anyway even for ex-Southampton Princess cruises because it is the onboard currency.  But then we always had a stash from our regular trips to the States (miss that too!)

I'm certainly not going to start changing sterling into dollars, just to give out a tip when someone walks 10 metres to bring me a drink,  especially when I have already  paid extra through Princess Plus to cover on board gratuities.

Good to get back to a tipping discussion after all this time, isn't it!

[dides]

18 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I'm certainly not going to start changing sterling into dollars, just to give out a tip when someone walks 10 metres to bring me a drink,  especially when I have already  paid extra through Princess Plus to cover on board gratuities.

Good to get back to a tipping discussion after all this time, isn't it!

Oh no - was purely talking about tipping for room service . I'll stop now 😉

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by dides

[dides]

Back on the dining reservations topic, I wonder if Afternoon Tea and Pub lunches will need to be booked too?  They typically cause quite a few queues but have only been available in limited time slots

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by dides

[JF - retired RRT]

12 hours ago, Coffeeluvr05 said:

I had an email all about it and then went to the website to read more about it and found that they had updated some things:

 

At this link: https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/food-and-dining/whats-included/ 

I was happy to read this:

 

Hmmm. I wonder if this will require more staff or just make them work harder than they already do?

[AF-1]

I would assume the room service attendants will be wearing gloves when they deliver your food;  so handing them a cash tip would not be harmful; since they have gloves on.  Now if you wash your hands prior to handing over the tip;  then all the better.

[wowzz]

14 hours ago, M. St. Louis said:

Any news or rumours if Traditional is going to end up no longer be a thing down the road? The wording used of 'we will honour existing arrangements' really makes it sound like it's not long for this world.

 

I sure hope it stays. We have our first Princess trip booked in 2022, would hate to cancel it. Lack of traditional dining is a dealbreaker for us, we simply won't cruise with anyone if they don't offer it.

Interestingly, on the two new Excellence ships, in the P&O fleet, traditional dining is no longer being offered.  I assume that this is partly due to the logistics involved in catering for so many people at the same time, and also because the target market for these two new ships are not typical of traditional dining cruisers. 

[cruzsnooze]

13 hours ago, MamaFej said:

I certainly hope most folks feel the way you and I do. This will definitely change the working conditions of the wonderful people who help make cruising special (and make us feel spoiled). I hope it ends up being a positive for them, not just drudgery of fetching and delivering. 

I do not. The reason they started the auto gratuity was to insure the crew received their tips and that passengers didn't need to tip for every little thing. I for one won't be carrying any money on me while on board. I suspect most people won't be tipping extra but wouldn't admit it on these boards without a flameproof covering. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by cruzsnooze

[secfan1]

Regarding Anytime vs Traditional dining, I have observed an interesting behavior on really long voyages, such as the World Cruise. At the beginning of the long voyage, there is a large number of people using Anytime dining and if they request a large table, get seated with other passengers they have never met before. I have enjoyed meeting a variety of other passengers in this way. But what happens is that certain groups of Anytime diners request to be seated together permanently at a certain time and table location. In doing so, they have now become Traditional diners. Another result is that the pool of unattached Anytime diners gets smaller and smaller.

[AZjohn]

8 hours ago, dides said:

Handing over tips to crew doesn't really go with TrulyTouchless™ cruising - would be nice if that was factored into your App ordering process (like most of our home food delivery services in the past year!)

 

Exactly, I'm sure this will be in app 🙂

[GonzoWCS]

Watching this unfold

[XBGuy]

18 hours ago, M. St. Louis said:

Any news or rumours if Traditional is going to end up no longer be a thing down the road? The wording used of 'we will honour existing arrangements' really makes it sound like it's not long for this world.

 

I sure hope it stays. We have our first Princess trip booked in 2022, would hate to cancel it. Lack of traditional dining is a dealbreaker for us, we simply won't cruise with anyone if they don't offer it.

 

From the "Dine My Way" page on Princes.com:

 

Dine When You Want

• Select dining times for main dining rooms and specialty restaurants.*
• Change reservations as needed. (It's flexible!)
• Request the same time each night if you prefer the same waitstaff.
• No reservations needed for those eligible for Club Class Dining.

*Previous dining selections (including traditional dining) will be honored.

 

 

From the footnoted comment, it appears that Princess plans on continuing the "Traditional Dining" option--at least for the foreseeable future.

[Tedferg]

Apologies if this is covered earlier in this thread - I don't remember all posts 🙂 But does this do away with Anytime dining ? e.g. if a large percentage of of prior Anytime Diners choose to make fixed reservations. That also would lead to discontinuing Traditional Dining. Why have the burden of separate dining rooms etc. if Fixed Anytime is available ?

[Ombud]

A "no tipping zone" is an establishment within a certain area where tips are already included in the price. Normally an extra 20% or a higher standard wage (minimum wage is currently $15 hr so add $2-4 per hour + hc = $17-19 hr). In some zones (grandson worked in one during college) staff is expressly told to not accept tips. 

 

I prefer places marked that way. So does the kitchen staff who then also get wages bumped up

 

Yknow how staff are supposed to turn tips in in case they have to cover any gratuity shortage caused by pax removing gratuities? Do they have to turn in bar & room service tips too?? (I tip for room service on my tab)

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Ombud

[caribill]

5 hours ago, Ombud said:

 

Yknow how staff are supposed to turn tips in in case they have to cover any gratuity shortage caused by pax removing gratuities? Do they have to turn in bar & room service tips too?? (I tip for room service on my tab)

 

 

 

 

Cash tips to bar staff and cash tips to room service staff do not have to be turned in to any pool. Sometimes drink servers will share their cash tips with the bar tender.

 

As I understand it, gratuities added to a bill do not go directly to the staff member but do go into a pool.

[Barry ATL]

12 hours ago, jwattle said:

On our last cruise (on the Grand) we tried to call it a night early more than once; the bartenders at Crooners spotted us walking by to our cabins: "Tom! Jo! (Holding up the Tanqueray and Champagne) We're making your drinks!" No early nights for us. Love the Princess staff!!😍

 

This is why we will still use in person service when in the bar.  Sometimes the crew is the best part of the cruise.

[worldtraveller]

It says no reservations needed for Club Class but can you select the table you want?  For example one by a window?

[JF - retired RRT]

4 hours ago, worldtraveller said:

It says no reservations needed for Club Class but can you select the table you want?  For example one by a window?

IIRC someone posted the description of My Way Dining and there was a place to request window or maybe specific table?

Guess we'll find out (soon?).

[Steelers36]

5 hours ago, worldtraveller said:

It says no reservations needed for Club Class but can you select the table you want?  For example one by a window?

You can select from the open tables not already occupied at the time of your arrival.  I would imagine you can ask the section's HW if you could have the same table each night.  But, IMO, it should be near opening as why should they save a table for an hour or more?

[victory2020]

On 5/6/2021 at 4:54 PM, phabric said:

I changed my 3 anything dining  to traditional.    
 

It shows traditional as 5pm or 8pm.

 

I thought early traditional was 5:30 or 5:45pm or 6pm?

We were on a cruise in 2019 where 1st seating was 4:30! People who had booked it were mostly shocked.

[Tedferg]

18 hours ago, Barry ATL said:

 

This is why we will still use in person service when in the bar.  Sometimes the crew is the best part of the cruise.

What does this mean ?

[PaperSniper4]

On 5/7/2021 at 2:18 AM, wowzz said:

At least in the UK we won't have that problem - no small bills available! 

Are smaller amount coins no longer available? When we were in the UK ten years ago I really liked the coins. Wish the USA had something similar, at least for vending machines and the like.

[wowzz]

20 minutes ago, PaperSniper4 said:

Are smaller amount coins no longer available? When we were in the UK ten years ago I really liked the coins. Wish the USA had something similar, at least for vending machines and the like.

Well, we could dish out £1 coins,  but I'm not sure how easy it would be for the crew to change them into $. 

[PaperSniper4]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

Well, we could dish out £1 coins,  but I'm not sure how easy it would be for the crew to change them into $. 

Oh, I'd think the crew were well versed on exchanging money!😉

[Coffeeluvr05]

On 5/7/2021 at 6:22 AM, AF-1 said:

I would assume the room service attendants will be wearing gloves when they deliver your food;  so handing them a cash tip would not be harmful; since they have gloves on.  Now if you wash your hands prior to handing over the tip;  then all the better.

Glove wearing is kind of useless if they are not changing them after touching other surfaces.  It's such a pet peeve of mine when I see food service employees wearing gloves.  What's the point if they handle my food, touch the cash register, my cc, and then do the same with each subsequent customer?  I think glove wearing just gives a PERCEPTION of cleanliness.  It just makes me cringe.

[Steelers36]

32 minutes ago, Coffeeluvr05 said:

Glove wearing is kind of useless if they are not changing them after touching other surfaces.  It's such a pet peeve of mine when I see food service employees wearing gloves.  What's the point if they handle my food, touch the cash register, my cc, and then do the same with each subsequent customer?  I think glove wearing just gives a PERCEPTION of cleanliness.  It just makes me cringe.

I have seen similar, but some stores have different procedures.  One example I can think of is they are pretty meticulous at my local Whole Foods about changing gloves at the meat counter. 

 

What doesn't make sense to me is the grocery stores that are still spraying the conveyor belts like they were a year ago before anyone knew what was what.